The Daily Telegraph reports:
Gary McKinnon wins judicial review of extradition decision
A High Court judge will rule on whether Alan Johnson was wrong to allow the extradition of computer hacker Gary McKinnon after his lawyers were granted permission for judicial review.
Published: 4:18PM GMT 13 Jan 2010
Mr McKinnon's lawyer, Karen Todner, said she was ''delighted'' by the decision. A hearing is likely to take place in April or May with a judge to rule on whether the Home Secretary was right to decide that sending him to the US for trial would not breach his human rights.
[...]
She said in a statement: ''I am delighted that the High Court has agreed to grant permission for the judicial review of Alan Johnson's decision to extradite Gary McKinnon.
''However, that is countered by the very poor mental state of Mr McKinnon due to the ongoing pressure of these proceedings.
''I would urge Mr Johnson to review his decision and I appeal to President Obama to withdraw the application for extradition. Mr McKinnon's suffering has gone on long enough.''
[...]
Since Judgments may take several weeks or months to be published, the outcome of this Judicial Review is very likely to be after the forthcoming General Election, and over 8 years since Gary was first arrested.
We hope that you will all ask your election candidates to publicly state exactly what they would do with the Gary McKinnon case, or with future extradition cases to the USA which could be tried here in the UK, if they became Home Secretary after the next election, and then to vote accordingly.
Nefertiti
Hoooooorrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay !
Whatever
Gary should be sent to the states for trial. To have the lame excuse that he was looking for UFO's doesn't hold water. If I break into a house and get accused of trying to rob the place, but comment that I wasn't robbing it, I was vandalising it, at the end of the day I have still broken into the house.
People like Gary need to learn that every action has a consequence. The feeble excuse about gary's mental state doesn't wash. A crime is a crime.
John Thompson
About time ,maybe the Home secretary can now go for surgery to have a backbone implant
Peter H. Rogers replied to comment from Whatever
You are wrong in principal and in law. The argument that Gary’s campaigners are putting forward is not that Gary should not be held accountable for his actions but that he should be held accountable for his actions in the jurisdiction in which he committed them. Since he committed these actions on a computer in his bedroom at his mother’s house – which is in the U.K. then he should he held accountable in the U.K. The reason why the U>S. authorities are so keen to have them face their justice is because they want their intelligence people to interrogate him completely free of any British involvement. It is a sad and despicable situation that our politicians are so spineless to yield to every demand the U.S. makes. As for mental state being a feeble excuse this is simply not the case. The courts routinely will take a person’s mental state into account not only in sentencing but also in reaching the verdict as to wither they are guilty or innocent.
It seems that you are one of these harsh hang ‘em and flog ‘em people. O.K. then. I put this challenge to you: My late father once told me that an [British Army] officer may have to be hard on his men, but if so he will have to be two or three times harder on himself. That is called leadership. If you demand a man runs one mile make sure you are prepared to run two. Therefore how about this ? There is an excellent charity called victim support. There are organisations that organise sponsored charity jumps. If you think you are man enough how about doing a jump for Victims Support?
fg
@ Whatever - you seem to be a bit confused about trans-national, internet enabled alleged crimes, which do not fit the old physical location based laws. Your straw man scenario is physically impossible across the Atlantic ocean.
So, presumably, you should have no objection to Gary being tried for the alleged offences here in the United Kingdom, where he was physically and where he was arrested, under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which covers alleged offences anywhere in the world ?
Peter H. Rogers replied to comment from fg
That Gary is tried under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 is precisely what should happen. So far as the trans national aspects are concerned this is as old as civilisation itself – we make the mistake of assuming that new technology always makes completely new scenarios – which his not the case. Consider the following hypothetical scenario which could have happened throughout history:
A river separates two tribes. A member of one tribe hurls a spear across the river and injures a person. The injured person complains to his chief, who in turn demands that the chief of the tribe on the other bank punishes the spear thrower. The chief agrees and the spear thrower is punished.
Socrates
Umm... Yeah, but the damage appears to be have been caused in the USA - this particulary incident was just twelve days after 9-11 - kinda strange actions for a UFO hunter:
"the Indictment charges that on Sept. 23, 2001, McKinnon again broke into the NWS (Naval Weapons Station) Earle computer network by accessing the previously-installed RemotelyAnywhere software and using the stolen passwords.
During this intrusion into the network, McKinnon allegedly caused approximately $290,431 in damage to NWS Earle by deleting computer files needed to power up some of the computers on the network, deleting computer logs that documented his intrusion into the network, and compromising the security of the network by leaving it vulnerable to him and other intruders via the RemotelyAnywhere software.""
fg
Socrates - the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990 has been used in the past, to prosecute people for alleged illegal access or altering / deleting files on a computer in the USA (and in other countries), by people physically in the UK.
Therefore your point about the alleged damage having been done in the USA, still does not support extradition to the USA, rather than a fair trial here in the UK, which is what Gary and his supporters are asking for.
The allegations of the amount of financial damage have never been tested in any court.
They are just allegations, which are suspiciously at least $5000 per computer, which is not coincidentally the limit set by the US authorities, above which federal agencies can get involved in computer crime cases. Anything below that is supposedly handled by the local police.
$5000 is enough to have bought and installed several brand new properly secured and configured computer systems, even back in 2001 / 2002.
,
Proving "beyond reasonable doubt" that Gary and nobody else who had access to those insecure systems, caused any damage whatsoever is always going to be hard, in any proper court.
Socrates
Well, 300 computers down at the Naval Weapons Station for a month - i. 1 week totally off-line. 3 weeks with reduced functionality - by my calculations this comes to about
$34.58 (£21.23) per day, per computer.
That doesn't seem too unreasonable - given the often incredible cost of Government IT services.
Anyway, it's all over. Gary (well, Gary's Mum) won the battle. And at some considerable cost to the reputation of people like myself with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) (Strangely neither I, nor the 600,000 others in the UK with AS, are compelled by it to hack repeatedly into military systems)
Gary's Victory is our loss.
Nefertiti
Oh dear me Socrates. Gary has never said his Asperger's compelled him to do it. He has never used Asperger's as an excuse for his unauthorised access to the US computers.
And, as for :
"And at some considerable cost to the reputation of people like myself with Asperger's Syndrome ..."
Gary's case has done more to raise awareness for Asperger's and Autism than anything or person has in a long time. This comes straight from the head of NAS so you are entirely wrong on that count.
Gary's victory will be an insurance policy for continued awareness-raising of both Autism and AS, i am sure.
Socrates
Nefertiti,
If you have a source for the NAS' Mark Lever's comments about Gary - I would be very grateful for the lead.
Nefertiti
This was said in private to the family at the press conference in January, it has been repeated since.
FG, who runs this website, can confirm that i am a friend of the family and was at the press conference.
So it's not a case of an internet link but if you really want to know perhaps you could e-mail him yourself.
I am surprised this is the only point you respond to after your thoughtless post.
Socrates
Nef,
Further responses are all on the New Republic blog,
see
"Autistic Hacker Slanders Us All"
"The strange case of Gary McKinnon"
"Autistic Hacker - Stoned, Again"
"Autism 2010 - A Look Forward"
"Jail Will Kill Stoned Hacker (Updated"
"McKinnon Up Sh t Creek Extradition Looms"
"Autistic Hacker (Stoned)"
"Autistic Hacker (Stoned) ii The £10,000 Letter"
"Autistic Hacker (Stoned) iii"
Nefertiti
I wouldn't view the Spew Repulsick Blog if i got 50 quid for every click.
Nefertiti
Soc.
You are obviously here to blow the wind of publicity in the direction of your narrow-minded blog. Go waste your time somewhere else.
Socrates
Given the number of referrals from here, it appears not to be a waste of time.
andy
i would not expect much from obama. prisoners with disabilities in america can go to special needs prisons. and people on death row and suffering from mental illness are still executed